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U.S. warns public about attacks on energy, industrial firms


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U.S. warns public about attacks on energy, industrial firms

 

(Reuters) - The U.S government issued a rare public warning that sophisticated hackers are targeting energy and industrial firms, the latest sign that cyber attacks present an increasing threat to the power industry and other public infrastructure.

 

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The Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation warned in a report distributed by email late on Friday that the nuclear, energy, aviation, water and critical manufacturing industries have been targeted along with government entities in attacks dating back to at least May.

 

The agencies warned that hackers had succeeded in compromising some targeted networks, but did not identify specific victims or describe any cases of sabotage.

The objective of the attackers is to compromise organizational networks with malicious emails and tainted websites to obtain credentials for accessing computer networks of their targets, the report said.

 

U.S. authorities have been monitoring the activity for months, which they initially detailed in a confidential June report first reported by Reuters. That document, which was privately distributed to firms at risk of attacks, described a narrower set of activity focusing on the nuclear, energy and critical manufacturing sectors.

 

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Scott McConnell declined to elaborate on the information in the report or say what prompted the government to go public with the information at this time.

“The technical alert provides recommendations to prevent and mitigate malicious cyber activity targeting multiple sectors and reiterated our commitment to remain vigilant for new threats,” he said.

 

The FBI declined to comment on the report, which security researchers said described an escalation in targeting of infrastructure in Europe and the United States that had been described in recent reports from private firms, including Symantec Corp.

“This is very aggressive activity,” said Robert Lee, an expert in securing industrial networks.

 

Lee, chief executive of cyber-security firm Dragos, said the report appears to describe hackers working in the interests of the (*********), though he declined to elaborate. Dragos is also monitoring other groups targeting infrastructure that appear to be aligned with (****), (***), (****)
   

The hacking described in the government report is unlikely to result in dramatic attacks in the near term, Lee said, but he added that it is still troubling: “We don’t want our adversaries learning enough to be able to do things that are disruptive later.”

The report said that hackers have succeeded in infiltrating some targets, including at least one energy generator, and conducting reconnaissance on their networks. It was accompanied by six technical documents describing malware used in the attacks.

 

Homeland Security “has confidence that this campaign is still ongoing and threat actors are actively pursuing their objectives over a long-term campaign,” the report said.

The report said the attacker was the same as one described by Symantec in a September report that warned advanced hackers had penetrated the systems controlling operations of some U.S. and European energy companies.

 

Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said in an email that much of the contents of Friday’s report were previously known within the security community.

 

Cyber-security firm CrowdStrike said the technical indicators described in the report suggested the attacks were the work of a hacking group it calls Berserk Bear, which is affiliated with the (*****) and has targeted the energy, financial and transportation industries.

“We have not observed any destructive action by this actor,” CrowdStrike Vice President Adam Meyers said in an email.

 

Source

 

Be advised, I have voluntarily removed references to different countries mentioned in this article. The subject matter is more important than the ever present and ever lasting political debates.

If you still want to go that way then you'll have to go fetch the names of those countries yourself at the source.

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knowledge-Spammer

Symantec  lol

and CrowdStrike  lies

yes i am sure they talk about russia again ?

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3 hours ago, Cerberus said:

Like the public can do anything about it.  All that does is stir up kayos.

Sounds  almost as the same news reported back in June  even  and still  nothing happened .


U.S. warns businesses of hacking campaign against nuclear, energy firms  June 30, 2017 / 7:04 PM / 4 months ago

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-energy/u-s-warns-businesses-of-hacking-campaign-against-nuclear-energy-firms-idUSKBN19L2Z9?il=0

I think by law  they have too warn them .

 

June 30, 2017

Quote

 

TORONTO (Reuters) - The U.S government warned industrial firms this week about a hacking campaign targeting the nuclear and energy sectors, the latest event to highlight the power industry’s vulnerability to cyber attacks.

Since at least May, hackers used tainted “phishing” emails to “harvest credentials” so they could gain access to networks of their targets, according to a joint report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The report provided to the industrial firms was reviewed by Reuters on Friday. While disclosing attacks, and warning that in some cases hackers succeeded in compromising the networks of their targets, it did not identify any specific victims.

 

 

October 21, 2017

Quote

 

(Reuters) - The U.S government issued a rare public warning that sophisticated hackers are targeting energy and industrial firms, the latest sign that cyber attacks present an increasing threat to the power industry and other public infrastructure.

 

The Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation warned in a report distributed by email late on Friday that the nuclear, energy, aviation, water and critical manufacturing industries have been targeted along with government entities in attacks dating back to at least May.

The agencies warned that hackers had succeeded in compromising some targeted networks, but did not identify specific victims or describe any cases of sabotage.

 

 

Rehash? why is the same exact thing being posted  over and over by the same journalist  ? This is why the news not even worth reading anymore.  It's  not the Government trying to spread kayos it's the media is.  .:tooth:

 

Credits  to a autotldr  bot at  reddit  AI  is watching you Jim Finkle :dance:

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This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 67%. (I'm a bot)

https://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6km5jv/us_warns_businesses_of_hacking_campaign_against/

 

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When is does happen, and it most assuredly will, Marshall Law will prevail...

 

So Sad to see Marshall Law madness again after so many years...

 

:(

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20 minutes ago, humble3d said:

Marshall Law IS the name of the SAC in the mix...

 

Yup. Definitely "impaired"   eXSJQI5.gif

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